In truth, I’m bored. I was presented with a challenge, and I would be paid to do it. Of course I was going to say yes.
Leo eyes me suspiciously. “How would I know?”
“You have, well, women—” I motion all around him, “in your house; those girly shows have to be on at some point.”
Leo narrows his eyes. “They’re notgirlyshows, Cooper. They’re just shows. And I actually do like them.”
“Then why don’t you know?”
His head droops, a sigh escaping his lips. It’s one of those sighs where you can physically feel the weight of an entire story behind it—beginning, middle, and tedious end.
I wonder how much time I have left before my next meeting.
“My sister says that some of them are scripted,” he tells me with a kick of his foot.
“Do you know which ones?”
He shakes his head. “They all seem the same to me. But apparently, there’s a whole thing about how producers get involved, and things get messy. Or it’s just all fake.” He throws up his hands in irritation. “I don’t know. The drama is interesting. There’s one show where they’re all cooped up in this big, open house in the Bahamas. If you ask me, it feels more like the damn Stanford prison experiment.”
I’m frankly surprised he knows what that is. My eyebrow raises.
Leo puts his hands up. “Isla said it! Spawned a whole rabbit hole for me to go down that night. Didn’t sleep until three in the morning. I was literally just rolling over endlessly, phone in my hands, scrolling through video after video of douchebags talking about how fit the women were. Briar kept hitting me in her sleep when the screen got too bright.” He thinks for a second. “At one point she woke up and asked why it sounded like whatever I was watching sounded like someone learning to speak for the first time, and I had to tell her it was because the man had giant, horribly-white, brand-new veneers that took up half his face.” He shivers.
Leo’s sister, Isla, and our teammate, Owen, are still living in the apartment next door to Leo. I wouldn’t put it past him to force them into watching TV with him on nights that Elara has dance.
I grab a water and head to our usual table, and I’m met with the uncomfortable, unsettling realization that everyone is settling down.
Except for me.
I’m right where I’ve always been, doing what I’ve always done. Party, drink, sweat the alcohol out of my system, play football, rinse and repeat.
One of my best friends from years ago disappeared for a while, only to come back with a whole wife and dog. And where are they living now? InSeattle.A dog, mind you, with my name.
Isla and Owen have a million things going on and are two seconds away from marriage and maybe a kid or two, if Isla has anything to do with it. Leo and Briar have their little family, and now Emmett and Heidi can’t keep their hands off each other. I swear they’re like pre-teens with their tongues down each other’s throats the second they’re alone.
It makes me sick… in a wholesome way.
I love that their lives are moving forward. I love that all of their hopes and dreams are coming true. That in five years, their lives are going to be vastly different from what they are even now. Because once life starts moving, it seldom stops.
But I’m still here. Wishing that I could have the one girl I can’t have, no matter what.
The same girl thatno oneknows I even have history with.
The same woman I left behind.
If there’s anyone other than Coach who would tear me a new asshole, it’s her.
CHAPTER 2
AMARA
“What does it say?” Briar asks, her elbows perched on her knees as she leans over the coffee table to take a peek.
I cringe, holding the flimsy card between my fingers. Zara giggles next to me, handing me my wine.
I take a big gulp. “How did you lose your virginity?” I look up at Briar, watching as her whole face goes red. She fidgets uncomfortably, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Do I really have to say?”
